Ambition
by LizBee
Summary: Ursa has plans for her future. So does her father.


**Ambition**

Written for Yifu in the White Lotus Lunar New Year Exchange. Prompt: Pre-marriage Ursa. Gen, younger Ozai optional.

* * *

The house felt subtly different when Ursa entered. All the furniture and objects remained just as she remembered, but there was an unfamiliar scent in the air, a tang of herbs and medicine and illness.

Her father waited for her in his study. She made her bow, swallowing her fears and questions. He would not want to see her cry.

"Daughter," he said as she straightened. "It's good you're home."

"I would have come sooner," she said. "I could have made up the exams."

"It was not yet time," he told her.

For as long as she could remember, Ursa's life had run on her father's schedules. Time to learn to walk. Time to go to school.

Ursa had been born two weeks late. To make a point, her mother had once said, and her father laughed.

He wasn't laughing now. His mouth was strained. The thought came to Ursa, _He doesn't want me to see him cry either._

He leaned forward over his desk and touched her hand. "Your mother's in the garden," he said. "Go to her."

She was waiting for Ursa in the pavilion overlooking the pond. Ursa paused on the threshold, catching her breath after her ungraceful dash through the grounds. Her mother smiled and held out her hands.

"Ursa," she said.

"I'm sorry," said Ursa, collapsing in a heap at her mother's feet. "I didn't know. They didn't tell me." She wiped her face with the sleeve of her school uniform and pulled herself up to sit at her mother's side, clutching at her hands.

Such frail hands, she realised. In the months Ursa had been away at school, her mother had wasted away. Even her hair seemed thinner.

"Is it," she said, then stopped.

"A growth in my breast," her mother said. "At least, that's where it began." She drew a long, shuddering breath, withdrawing her hands from Ursa's and reaching for the tea pot on the little table beside her. Her hands shook a little.

"Let me," said Ursa, and poured the poppy tea, and held the cup to her mother's lips.

"Now," said her mother when the cup was empty, "we need to talk about the future. Your future."

"It can wait," said Ursa. "I don't have to go back to school until after-" she faltered. "We can go to Ember Island. Sea bathing is supposed to be good for the health, and you can sit in the sun and-"

"Ursa," said her mother, "there's no time."

It was the sun, reflecting off the pond, that made Ursa's eyes water.

"Father should have told me sooner."

"Don't be angry. He had decided on a time for telling you. Planning is a comfort to him." Her mother hesitated. "Please," she said, "don't be angry with his plans."

Something about the way she said it-

"What plans?" Ursa asked.

"You won't be going back to school." Her mother put her hands on Ursa's shoulders and motioned her to turn, then began to work at her hair, undoing it from its long braid. "You're nearly thirteen. Almost a woman."

"But I want-" It was ridiculous, to worry about herself while her mother was so ill. Only - her father wasn't the only one with plans. And it was her mother who negotiated with her father, who had fought for Ursa to have a proper firebending master, instead of the old women who taught the Fire Dances that Ursa detested.

She was about to lose her only ally in her war for her future. Strategy, she told herself. Strategy, like Fire Lady Minh versus the rebel sages. She would be rational, and clever, and perfectly detached.

Still, her voice was very small as she said, "But I wanted to take the Imperial examinations." The first step of an honourable career of service to the Fire Nation. Her father was a very minor noble, and her mother's family were - no, best not to speak of it. But she was clever and capable; one day, with hard work and luck and political favour, she might become a senior minister, with duties and responsibilities and the ear of the Fire Lord himself.

"Your father," said her mother carefully, "is a very old fashioned man."

"He's going to marry me off to some lordling, and congratulate himself that his grandchildren will have superior rank."

"I think he might be aiming rather higher than that."

Something in her mother's voice made Ursa turn around.

"How much higher?" she said.

There was a flicker of her mother's old humour in her eyes.

"How would you like to be a princess of the Fire Nation?"

For a second, Ursa couldn't breathe. So much power, so soon.

Only, the royal consorts had no power, except through their children. Unless they could persuade their husbands-

"Father's going to aim me at Prince Ozai, isn't he?"

"His cousins are part of the prince's circle."

Ursa drew her legs up to her chest. She wanted to lean against her mother, the way she had when she was smaller, but her mother was so thin.

"I remember," said her mother, "how you argued to be taught proper firebending. You were only seven, but you were so rational and logical. And then I found you in the garden that night, setting my trees on fire."

"No one was teaching me," Ursa mumbled. "How was I to learn?"

"Which is what I said to your father." Her mother leaned back against the cushions of her chair, her eyes half-closed. "He won't be so reasonable this time. He thinks he's doing the right thing for you. He loves you very much, you know."

"Aren't you scared?" Ursa asked.

"Yes," her mother said. She was beginning to slur a little. "Do you want to have children, Ursa? I never thought to ask."

"Yes." Ursa frowned. "But I thought my family would be separate from the politics." _Safe._

"A luxury the royal family can't give you. But," her mother plucked at Ursa's sleeve. "If you have a daughter, you can be sure she won't have to teach herself firebending in secret."

When her mother was asleep, Ursa went inside, to speak again with her father.

_end_


End file.
